Tell Me Lies
by Dassa Mudruffin
Summary: Tom Riddle is one of the few friends Ginny has. She trusts and belives in him, but should she? STATUS: Complete!


Author's Note: This is just a short one-shot fic on what I think Ginny would have told Tom Riddle after the dueling club in her first year (Harry, Ron, and Hermione's second year). Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. J K Rowling, and Warner Bros. Inc. do. Please don't sue me.

Tell Me Lies

Ginny Weasley raced through the halls of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Her trademark Weasley-red hair bounced freely and her black school robes billowed out behind her as she ran down the twisting corridors. Reaching her destination, Ginny stopped and rested momentarily from her long run. She looked up at a painting of a large woman in an extravagant pink dress.

Noticing that Ginny was there, the painting came to life, as if it were magic. She glanced down serenely from her portrait and spoke in a regal, yet mother-like tone. "Password?" the painting asked.

Ginny looked up at the woman in the painting and gave it a tiny smile before looking down at her feet and mumbled the word the woman in the pink dress was waiting to here (_Wattlebird!_) to grant her entrance.

The painting swung open, revealing the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. Ginny ignored the nearly empty room and rushed up the staircase that led to the girls' dormitories. Stopping in front of a door with a sign reading "first years" on it, Ginny silently walked in the room and moved towards a large, shabby, trunk at the end of her bed. Rummaging through the schoolbooks and miscellaneous items in the trunk, Ginny pulled out a thin black book with the words "T. Riddle" inscribed gold letters on the front.

Flipping through the pages yellowed by age, Ginny grabbed a quill and inkbottle out of her trunk and climbed onto her bed. She closed the curtains around her and muttered a small light spell (_Lumos!_) so she would be able to see. Stopping on one of the blank pages, Ginny began to write.

"Hello Tom!"

The ink quickly bled into the page Ginny had written on. Slowly, words began to form on the page in a clean, male, hand.

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"Why hello, Ginny. Did you have a good day? You seem excited."

Ginny squealed happily as she wrote her reply to Tom, "Oh Tom, it was so exciting! Do you remember when I told you that Professor Lockheart was going to start a dueling club?"

The ink slowly sank into the page until none of it remained on the clean yellowing surface. Seconds turned into long minutes as Ginny waited. Tom still hadn't responded. Ginny began to worry. Had she said something that had upset him? Numerous worries filled her mind, as the page remained blank. Ginny's brown eyes relaxed a little when she saw words begin to faintly appear on the page.

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"Yes, I remember. Did something happen at the dueling club?"

Ginny sighed in relief. Dipping her quill into the inkpot next to her, she hastily wrote her reply, barely able to contain her building excitement. "It was so exciting, Tom! I've never seen a real duel before. There were so many people there!"

Before all of the ink from Ginny's message had faded into the page, a reply was already forming.

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"Was your friend, Potter, there?"

Ginny's cheeks turned bright red when she saw Harry's name. Tom was the only person she confided her feelings about Harry in. "Yes," she wrote, "He was there. He was one of the duelists!"

Tom's reply came soon after Ginny's had faded.

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"Who dueled? How many were there?"

Ginny read Tom's question over again. Why was he interested in who dueled? Coming to the conclusion that he was just curious, Ginny quickly answered his question, "Well, the first duel was between Professor Lockheart and Professor Snape. It was a weird duel, though."

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"Why do you say that, Ginny?"

"Well, Professor Lockheart was in charge of the dueling club, but Professor Snape seemed to know more about dueling than he did!"

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"That is kind of weird. Who else dueled?"

Ginny looked at the diary, confusion clear in her eyes. Why had Tom been so un-interested in the duel the teachers had had? Tom had gone to Hogwarts, surely duels between teachers were not a common occurrence in his time. "Well, Harry was the next to duel… but don't you want to hear about the duel between Professor Lockheart and Professor Snape?"

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"I wanted to hear about the duel your friend Harry had. Who was it with?"

Ginny began to write her response, but then paused. Tom had been asking an awful lot of questions concerning Harry lately. Especially since… Ginny shook her head violently. "No!" she said to herself, "Tom would never make me do anything that would hurt others. He's my friend!"

__

"Ginny? Are you still there?"

The fresh words on the page in front of her pulled Ginny out of her thoughts. "Yes, Tom. I'm still here," she wrote.

_"Is everything ok?"_

Ginny smiled. Tom really was her friend. He had been concerned about her when she hadn't responded. "I'm alright. I was just trying to remember the name of the boy that Harry dueled."

_"Oh, alright. Do you remember his name?"_

Ginny thought for a moment. The boy Harry had dueled had been from Slytherin house. Professor Snape had called him up for the duel. Ginny tapped her chin with the end of her quill. Blond hair, a sneer on his face… That's it! Harry's partner had been Draco Malfoy. She quickly wrote her response to Tom. "It was a boy in Slytherin, Tom. His name was Draco Malfoy. Ron's always complaining about what a git Malfoy is."

_"Was it a good duel?"_

Dipping her quill into her ink bottle, Ginny hastily wrote her reply, "It was amazing, Tom! They were both incredible!" She watched her words fade into the page before responding. "It looked like they were evenly matched… until Professor Snape told Malfoy to say a spell. I don't know what it was."

_"What did the spell do?"_

Ginny's eyes brightened. Maybe Tom knew what the name of the spell was. "It made a giant snake come out of the end of Malfoy's wand! I've never seen such a thing before! Do you know what it was, Tom?"

Tom's response came just as the last letter from Ginny's message faded, _"No, Ginny. I'm sorry, I don't know the name of the spell."_

Just as Ginny was placing her quill on the page, another message came.

_"What did you friend do when he saw the snake?"_

Ginny removed her quill from the paper and dipped it in the inkpot. Tom had been asking more questions about Harry then usual. Placing her quill back on the paper, she began to write. "Well, he stopped moving and stood very still… Then he did the weirdest thing…"

_"What did he do, Ginny?"_

"He started… talking to the snake, or at least I think he was talking to it. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but the snake seemed to."

_"Parseltounge."_

Ginny's quill froze above the page. Harry, a parseltounge? Tom had to be wrong. Only dark witches and wizards were parseltounges. Harry was the boy who lived! He couldn't be one. "He can't be, Tom! Only evil witches and wizards are parseltounges!"

_"Ginny, you know that's not true. Not all are evil. Look at your friend Harry."_

Ginny relaxed slightly. "You're right, Tom. Harry's to wonderful to be evil."

_"See? Things aren't always what they seem, Ginny."_  
Ginny smiled. Tom was always wonderful to her. He treated her like a lady. "Yes Tom, not always."

A few minutes passed in silence as Ginny thought about her friendship with Tom. He'd always been so kind to her, especially when she came up to her room to cry and write to him when she was upset. He was always understanding with her. He never yelled, like her brother, Ron, did. Ginny continued to think about Tom until words forming on the page in front of her caught her eye.

_"Ginny? I wanted to ask if you could do something for me."_

"Sure, Tom, what is it?"

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"…I wanted to know if you would go back to the chamber."

Ginny stared at the page in shock. He wanted her to go back. Why? He knew that place scared her. "But... you know I don't like that place, Tom. You promised me that you wouldn't ask me to go back."

_"It's the last time Ginny… I promise. Please, do it for me?"_

Ginny sighed. She couldn't say no to him. He'd always been so understanding… "Alright Tom. I'll go back, but this is the last time."

_"Thank you Ginny. And it will be the last time."_

She would go back to the chamber one more time. She owed it to him. "I'll go back tomorrow, Tom. I promise."

Ginny extinguished the light coming from her wand and placed the quill and inkbottle on the table next to her bed. Climbing under the thick blankets of her bed, she prepared to go to sleep. She had class tomorrow, and she had to go back to the chamber. As she thought about Tom, Ginny slowly drifted into sleep, dreaming of Tom and Harry.

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"It will be the last time, Ginny. For after this visit, I will have enough power to reclaim what is mine…"


End file.
